There are things that you can still buy for र 5 in India========================================

While at Trichy, I got a call from wife that she had asked her s-i-l to get a lot of "craft items" but missed something called "crepe paper". So, I was to go to "MPM" or similar paper store and get crepe paper of some 10 assorted colors. (I was given explanation as to the dimensions, texture, acceptable colors and other specs).

Jumped behind co-bro on a motorcycle and went to Thillainagar's (rather Trichy's) answer to Office Depot / Office Max, called MPM stores. The store that used to be "ask-and-get-from-sales-attendant" years back has converted itself into a "walk-in-and-pick" type, like most stores. However, for speciality items (unfortunately, there are many and my crepe paper fell under that category), one has to ask people.

"What paper?" was the reaction from most attendants as the store didn't have the item

Finally, an experienced person told us "you'll have to check in alli mAl theru"! And we started towards there...(BTW, as an additional item, I was to pick up some 5-10 "organizers" - multi-flap file folders - to be given as compliments...Got some decent looking ones at MPM for र 270 each - approximately half the price of similar items at Wal*Mart here ; dropped them off at home before the trip to alli mAl).

I don't remember if I had ever been to the "alli mAl theru" of Trichy during my college years or afterwards. However, I definitely remember the name - it often got figured in conversations related to paper and stationary items those days. Well, since my co-bro is familiar with every nook and corner of the town, it took only a few minutes before we entered the lane.

The first store we came across informed us which shop has it and where it is.

And they had that paper in a variety of colors...being a mun-jAkkiradhai fellow, I decided to ask the price of each sheet...reluctantly, I asked "each enna vilainga?"

He said र 5 (Having tuned my ears to prices in multiples of 100's for a few days, this was unbelievable!)

Picked some 10 sheets or so in assorted colors and I got money back after giving him a र 100 note!

So, you can buy things for just र 5 after all, even today, in India!

(BTW, that s-i-l got sick and failed to get the other art items So, I ended up going to Trichy's answer for Joann / Michael's kind of craft stores, that little "Renuka" stores that evening and spent an hour picking jigina items...with continuous instructions from overseas on the cell phone!)

Discussion of prices in India cannot be complete without talking about the money a common man spends on public transport (Despite the fact that most people of middle class have migrated to personal vehicles, 2 wheelers for local and cars for long distance, there are still a lot who use public transport).

Unfortunately, I didn't have opportunity to travel in train during this trip. Neither did I look at the current fares. So, the readers escape any complaints about railway gAdi

Likewise, there was zero opportunity to use a "city-bus" "town-bus" kind of local transits.

Why, I had only 2 opportunities in total, of using public transport - one a mofussil bus trip (Dindigul to Trichy) followed by a 3 wheel auto rickshaw ride from Trichy bus station to "sAlai road" area.

During my recent visit, I was talking to a relative who works for state gov about the land prices. The person informed that one of their dept. branch offices - that was supposedly among the "poorest" of the offices in the state - had suddenly become the richest in that area, simply by selling a few acres of land that belonged to it, to another gov department (transport) for its new project

It is no secret that the hottest priced item in the recent years in TN is land & otherwise real estate (means, that 2 bed room apartment on the 10th floor of a building whose land will have 100's of flat-owners having a meagre share in it )

People have been murdered, tons of court cases got initiated - why the gov had to even enact a special law / order / enforcement to handle such crimes alone, in the recent times! Such is the way in which prices have skyrocketed in recent times!

My b-i-l made this remark : "Traditionally rich businessmen and industrialists are no longer rich in TN, but only those who had some land years before - land that could not be cultivated and could not yield even one kg of produce! Those are the richer lot of TN today, got so much money and do not know what to do - they keep buying luxury cars and roam around in Chennai malls"

It is actually SCARY to look at some of the numbers!

Let me cite an example to which I'm privy to the details

There is this family home, an independent house in a prime location of a small town, that had to be urgently mortgaged to get money for biz.

Due to many commitments and tight biz scenario, the owners could not mortgage it themselves and got another "salaried relative" to get HDFC loan for the house. (Obviously, they had to "sell" it to that relative for the "guideline" value, which was < 25 lacs and the money needed was only ~20 lacs for business).

Fast forward 5 years, business flourished, mortgage got paid off and that relative has to "register it back" to original owners, who lived there all along anyways.

Being a nice guy, he didn't ask for ANY COMPENSATION for the service and agreed to transfer it back - as he had been only an "instrument" in the whole operation. (Actually I'm sugar-coating it as the fellow is too nice to talk about his losses in an open forum, his real-life story can easily be the raw material for a Sathyan Anthikkad - Mohanlal movie ).

Thankfully, they did the "buy-back" JUST IN TIME before the guideline values got revised! (They did it for less than 40 lacs and paid corresponding taxes only). That house owner was SWEATING when he told me the revised guideline value for the same place - a whopping 1.5 crore

They could have never been able to (a) show revenue for such an amount (b) deposit the sale amount in bank for registration (c) pay the sales tax & (d) get back their house properly! If at all they could, it would have taken them years - and who knows what would be the prevailing price at that point of time!

Such is the terrific impact on lives today the dramatic increase in prices of real estate in TN! Whoever had some land as inheritance has hit a gold mine in the last decade. Likewise whoever had invested in this a couple of decades back and patiently waited for "appreciation" had got rewarded with unbelievable appreciation!

I don't think I've personally seen any other thing increase in prices of such degree during my lifetime!

May be some shares or may be gold in some short time periods! Astonishing!

Yeah death to the real estate mafia. Even in the remotest of the places, empty land is divided and marked with a hoarding that says XYZ Avenue - Land for Sale. செங்கிப்பட்டில என்னடா அவென்யூ?

But while talking to some 'insiders' learnt that the market has started falling down, a little. I mean people may say your land will sell for 15000/sq.ft (Thillai Nagar Trichy) but it is extremely hard to find buyers who can afford it seems.